All institutions, being a product of human societies, have a birth, an evolution and a end: unless they reform themselves, they die. This include the nation states, that are passing through a transition from mono-ethnic to pluri-ethnic identities (see the new approach of the CDU in Germany to the concept of motherland, Heimat) and the democratic systems, being them based on Presidential or Parliamentarian institutions, that are passing today through a transition from representative to participatory democracy, still inside a Republican framework. As the transformation of nation states is happening mostly in the two countries that built them, France and Germany, the “reformation of democracy” is happening in the country that contributed to create it millennia ago: Italy (as Greece failed last year in his attempt).

Liberal Western democracies are in crisis since some decades already, because of the economic power dominating the political one, the inefficiency of the public institutions and the distance between establishment politicians and the people. But the recent migrations to Europe from the Mediterranean Sea and the economic crisis caused by the banks and the neoliberalism of the free markets, made it even worst. The Western elites, both in the economic sphere with the financial powers, and in the political one with the ruling powers, are trying to transform in de-facto oligarchies what were developed as democracies in the West. This is what a “post-democracy”, as Crouch defines it, is: elites taking the decisions and co-opting the democratic institutions for their interests. Last time that this happened, almost one century ago, and again with economic crisis and migrations, we went (as Plato foreseen in his system of 5 regimes) from democracy to tyranny, with the catastrophic consequences that we all know. Now we should have learned the lessons, but we don’t know yet what will happen. “We gave you a Republic, if you can keep it” as Benjamin Franklin said.

Many movements in the South of Europe, tried to push their Republics (or Constitutional Monarchies, like in Spain) to go from a representative to a more participatory democracy. All these processes have been defined often as “populism”, while should have been called more “classicism”, as all the new political forces are calling for going back to what were the ancient models of a more direct democracy (actually Renaissance of Arts and Politics in Florence happened because we went back to Classics, and so the same could happen for a Renaissance of Democracy today). The rebirth of democracy must come therefore from the reformation of its institutions, first the Parliament, an institution created in different moments in Europe, from the Senate of the Roman Republic two millennia and half ago to the Magna Charta in England 8 centuries ago, that should pass today from a mere representative to a more participatory one, using new tools like the internet and its e-democracy. But even if the people will try to control and counsel more their representatives, creating in this way a more “participatory democracy”, the oligarchies and elites will obviously not allow it easily.

The case of Italy is emblematic. What have been defined as “populist” forces, the political parties of 5SM and League, that in reality came from modern grassroots movements (based on Meetups or civil society meetings) came to power on the frustration of the people (who are also more informed and knowledgeable than in the last decades). They were able for the first time (differently from Greece, where they failed) to form a government that would have made interventions for the people against the elites, including re-discussing the European institutions that have been imposed on the people from top down. This not in order to destroy the united Europe, but to make it stronger, more felt by the European citizens as something in their hands, and not in the hand of the “Eurocrats” of Bruxelles. But the President of the Italian Republic, made it impossible, at least for now, not accepting the proposition for the Ministry of the Economy, who was on this position. This happened with the excuse of the fear of destroying the Euro, and so put Europe in crisis, with the new populist forces. In reality to ‘constitutionalize’ and ‘parlamentarize’ the so called “populists” would have been a way to moderate them, first of all obliging them to show if they were able to do something good and sustainable, as their campaign promises, or not. But to forbid them from creating a government can make people now even more angry and vote in stronger majority the populist parties next Fall. So, it is like a vicious circle: you try to avoid populism and, in this way, you make is stronger and more extreme. It is the error of the institutions and elites that cannot look outside their circle.

While Italy will go back to elections in Fall, “we’ll see what happens”, as someone on this side of the Atlantic constantly says, clearly showing the current inability of the leaderships in the Western democratic world to impact, or even to predict future trends and events (so differently from the Chinese, and other dictatorships’ visionary policies for the next decades). But one thing is certain, there is no going back: the representative democracy based on what became a corrupted party system in the West, slave of the economic and financial power, is dead. Now we need to create a new form of Res-Publica. And Italy is on the first line for this. But pay attention, as democracy can always degenerate in tyranny. That’s why in America someone in the past said, US is a Republic not a democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKI-PfCeCQ4

Richard Haas in a recent article argued that the US retreat and the consequent end of the, Western built, Liberal World Order will make a world “that is less free, less prosperous, and less peaceful, for Americans and others alike”. This short article wants to challenge this conclusion, to say that it could, but it could also represent the opposite: it is a question of perspectives. To argue so we need to challenge its definition of “World Liberal Order”.

First of all, it was a “world” order as it was dominated by the Bipolarism and then by the Unipolar moment of the US, but both of this orders ended (the first for the collapse of one of the two empires and the second for the retreat of the one left, given the unsustainability of “imperial overstretching” for both). But in reality, the order had been created by the winner of WWII, UK and US, and it was led by the West (in primis US that is why many refers to it as “Pax Americana”) while today could become really more “worldly” because of multipolarism. Many countries around the world want to have their say today and it is their right, now that the “Rest” is catching up with the “West”. The “Easternization of power”, to say it with a recent book of Gideon Rachman, shows that the balance of military, political and economic power has shifted far away from the West to Asia and this has to be taken into account by the West. Not only China and India but emerging powers with primacy in their regions desire to become the stakeholders of future regional structures, from Turkey and Iran in the Middle East, to Indonesia and the Philippines in South East Asia, to Brazil and Andean countries in South America. Regional orders are becoming more and more important with economic integration and the so called “collective security communities”, the first and oldest one being NATO, that after ending its expansion is concentrating now on defense of its borders. But there are other collective security communities in formation, first of all the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with China and Russia leading it, the Association of South East Asian Nations, with Indonesia and Thailand at the center of the ring, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, with India and Pakistan, the Organization of America States, with Mexico and Brazil as top player. The other two regions, Africa and Middle East, must resolve their internal domestic problems, before to think about a grand bargain among the regional powers. This shift from world orders to regional ones will save the preponderant power, still the US, from the risk of “imperial overstretching” of the hegemon, even if there is always the risk of the lack of order with the lack of hegemony (see the Hegemonic Stability Theory).

Second it was “liberal” as it was based on liberal values of free market and democracy, but the beneficiary of this system were especially the political and economic elites, not so much the billions of people that still struggle to achieve their human security needs around the world. This liberal order based more and more, with the time, on extreme forms of neoliberalism, liberism, and crony-capitalism, was the reason that created the enormous inequality of today, that has not end in its raising. And to end such type of liberal order could mean to limit the top-down liberalism imposed on people for the interest of the banks and great corporations, to create a more “inclusive liberalism” at grassroots level, with more inclusion for people, especially of lower classes, ethnic minorities, or discriminated people because of gender, age or different abilities. Nevertheless first, this can be done only if we pass in the West from “representative democracy” systems, often corrupted and representing the interests of the few, to a more “participatory democracy”, similarly to the ancient direct democracy, now that we have the technological tools that can help us to do that. We can look at the new “Five Stars Movement” (5SM) in Italy, that always represented a country that anticipates the trends for the Western world, being the creator of that Western civilization, from the Republic in Rome two millennia and half ago, to the Renaissance in Florence five centuries ago, to Berlusconi that arrived to power almost 25 years before Trump. This movement, born online, is the first party in Italy, and is foreseen that will govern soon the country. Its first policies will try to reduce inequality, cutting high incomes of politicians and introducing a citizen’s basic income, and to reduce the corruption of representative democracy, cutting public funding, forbidding convicted representatives to be in Parliament and limiting the mandates of lawmakers to a maximum of ten years. This is how populism could be used in a good way in other democracies too, at least provided that people can vote with the head on their shoulders, and not with the guts and the fake news of today. The problem though is that the end of political ideologies gave people insecurity on how to choose the vote and so before to give the power of “direct/participatory democracy” to the people, if we want to avoid manipulation and possibility of going back to tyrannies we need to do a formation of the people, teaching in the schools political literacy and civic education for example, and before to vote the citizens should be informed on programs more than on Facebook likes (Trump docet). The US will learn from past errors and the lobby system as well as the informational wars are things that America will be able to deal with in the short future.

Finally it was an “order” as no major conflict among great powers erupted, but it was not an order for external smaller powers, from the hot long battled in South East Asia and East Asia to the violence inside many countries, full of intra-state conflicts, with minorities repressed and securitized and dictatorial regimes supported by the West destroying their people and arriving at genocide attempts while the great powers tried to not look (from Balkans and Rwanda, to Myanmar and Syria today). The end of this “international order” therefore, could facilitate more order inside the countries, if external powers stop to meddle in other’s sovereignty and start to support actions that address the root causes of internal conflicts, fist of all economic causes, followed by political and social ones. Great power rivalry also, doesn’t exclude the support in the long term to the smaller powers, on the contrary can make competition for soft power of attraction, more that for hard power of sphere of influence, positive for the countries assisted. This is how nationalism and retreat to our own borders, today, could be used in good way: not for invasion and meddling but for respecting the dignity of any state. Great powers could deter one another while cooperating to solve global security, environmental and economic problems, that are the most urgent problems we have as humankind, from international terrorism to illicit trafficking, from climate change to epidemics, from stagnation to still presence of strong poverty. And again here the leadership of the US could be crucial, at the end of the day administrations pass but country’s values and missions remain.

Therefore, as we can see if we want to understand the advantage of living in an era of transformation, we can help to build more “Inclusive Regional Orders” with the lesson learned from the past. We don’t need to throw the baby with the bathwater, many elements of the old World Liberal Order can and should be maintained but also improved, first of all the leadership of someone that take into account the needs of all the rest, like the US could and should do in the future as it did in the past. It will be a long gestation, but we owe it to our future generations, that will hopefully live in peace one day on this planet.

According to Plato, who followed the theory of anacyclosis at the time of the struggles between Sparta and Athens, societies pass through five types of political regimes, always through the degeneration of the former. The first is the Aristocracy, with the philosopher king, then comes the Timocracy, with the owners as rulers, then the Oligarchy, with the rich in power, then Democracy, with power for all, and finally the Tyranny, when the anarchy created by the dysfunction of democracy is again managed by a strong leader to maintain order. If we look at today the eternal examples of Sparta and Athens may not be useful only for the Peloponnesian War, with the “prisoner dilemma” (Thucydides trap) at the basis of realism in international relations, but also for their domestic policy regimes .
Today, Western democracy is in decline, not so much because it is inefficient or dysfunctional, even if it has quite normal governance problems when we live “inside history”, but because first of all it became functional to the economic system, making political power a slave of the economic power, and second because we forgot that democracy is a process without end, which needs to be constantly nourished but also reformed, otherwise even the strongest, most stable and efficient institutions weaken and go into decline, returning as Plato said even to the possibility of Tyranny (as it happened a century ago with Nazifascism). The erosion in the Western world of representative democracy and its institutions, both from above – with supranational bodies such as the EU or with the corporations and the processes of globalization – and from below – with civil society, and all groups and individuals that erode the power of the state, from charitable organizations to criminal groups – shows an urgent need for reforms for the very survival of democracy. Democracy, with the liberation of the individual from the chains of stratified society, started already since the time of the Sumerians, continues its journey without stopping. But not without problems and not in the same way in every part of the world.
On the contrary, on one hand new dictatorships and increasingly strict autocracies, almost Orwellian as a Big Brother, are forming around the world, where information and communication are still completely controlled, from China to Cuba, from Russia to Iran. On the other hand, Western democracies are increasingly “participated”, people are increasingly empowered to “control the controllers”, those responsible for public affairs, primarily the politicians, being able to participate directly in the “market of ideas” within the public sphere. This is also and above all thanks to the increasingly transparent information and communication through the interconnected network, what is commonly called in English “Inter-Net”. So today we are passing through a phase of polarization not only within the countries between people of the old “left and right”, which today is actually more and more a division between “the cosmopolitans and the nativists” (given that this is the new division of the electorate and the people at the social, political and economic level) but also a polarization in the world between ever more “direct democracies” and ever more “controlled autocracies”.
So, what should Western democracies do to fight against this new 21st century ideological war, not so much based on two opposite economic models – such as communism and capitalism like in the last century – but on opposite socio-political models? First of all, they do not have to go towards “authoritarianization”. The parliamentary republics do not necessarily have to become presidential republics, to make governments capable of acting with more strength and agility in modern times, as the center-left government thought recently in Italy with the proposal to abolish one of the two failed chambers in the referendum. But they must become rather “popular republics”, rediscovering the importance of direct democracy, Athenian precisely, more than the British representative one, based only on the representative parliament, a very important tool for so many centuries, but today too obsolete. Some propose to return to the drawing by lot, just like in ancient Athens, similar to the Anglo-Saxon juridical system of juries (like my friend David Grant with his “Common Lot” http://thecommonlot.com ). Others, like the 5 Star Movement in Italy, propose to use the Internet for the best.

With this movement, born almost ten years ago by a strategist of the web and a famous comedian who protested for decades against the party system or “the caste”, for the first time in Italy, and probably in the world, a party born of civil society led online from a blog has come to become the first party voted in Parliament (and perhaps in the next election it will also come to form a government). Not only that but for the first time a party has allowed any citizen without a record to apply by registering online at the primaries for the Parliament for voting next March.
This demonstrates the power of the Internet to amplify the voice of the masses, as seen in the Arab Springs. But already for at least a decade there have been signs that the Internet gives political power to citizens and the masses. In fact, great social changes are often driven by revolutions in communication. Even with the Internet, people can access all the information in the world, but beyond that internet is changing human relations and therefore society, as did the press and television. Citizens can intervene directly in political decisions, commenting on them, protesting them, proposing them instead of having representatives who once elected could not be controlled by the represented (except in cases where the person represented was a powerful person). Internet will therefore bring more participation and direct democracy, at a local level certainly and perhaps also worldwide in the distant future, through movements from below that will connect on the network to decide on fundamental issues for the planet such as energy, food, health, environmental protection, technological development. And maybe it will also help to reduce “identity politics”, policies based on identities like nationalism and nativism, making human beings more and more as planetary citizens. This is the way in which Western democracies can recover after the weakening caused by inefficiency and the attacks they are receiving from “eastern” dictatorships, using the internet as an instrument of democracy instead of as an instrument of control or repression, as they do the autocracies (from Russia infiltrating the policies of Western democracies to China by controlling protests on the Internet).
We do not know how it will end but in the meantime a government in Italy (which created Berlusconi long before Trump and Renzi long before Macron, so always showing the path as usual with Italy for the good or the bad) based on the E-democracy, like a government of the 5 Star Movement, could be an example of good practice for other Western democracies. Posterity will judge. As Dante said coming our from the Hell: “To see again the stars”… next spring?

Translation for my Italian friends who don’t know English or how to use Google Translate 😊

The new American century, started with Bush, Obama and then Trump administration, is beginning to have its effects on American people. With the first year of Trump era America really showed to be great again, but not as the POTUS would think, rather in its opposite side: less racist, hating and sexist then last century. At the end of 2017, after the start of removal of Confederate monuments and memorials, to stop glorify white supremacy; the National Football League kneeling during national anthem, to protest racial inequality; the issues on ‘Free Speech’ at Berkeley, to avoid “hate speech” of far-right; and the ‘Me-Too’ movement, to denounce sexual harassment against women that got the first page of Time, we can say: The Times They are a Changing in the US again, similarly to 50 years ago.

Obviously, the changing of the skin creates a contrary reaction, as human beings adapt to the progress gradually, also trying to conserve the status quo. The strongest reaction is obviously the one of who has more power to conserve, and so the reaction of ‘white rich protestant supremacist men’, often together with the far-right haters and the misogynists, trying to pull back the change with their traditional phobias: the Black-phobia, the Socialist-phobia and the Gino-phobia. The Black-phobia – expanded later to Latino-phobia and all the others ethnicities, religions and in general “civilizations”, like for example with the Islamo-phobia – is based on the fear of losing an identity and so becoming racist or “religionist”; the Socialist-phobia, is based on the fear of losing wealth and in general of creating a powerful state against individual liberty; and finally the Gynophobia, the first step to Misogyny, that makes men afraid of losing their power over women and in general communities. All these phobias were represented in the former POTUS, not only being black but accused to be Socialist, Muslim and having a first lady very present and active in the American Presidency. But they came out at full speed under the recent “hot-autumn”[1] of the Trump presidency, characterized by a lowering of the Trump support – not only for his character but also because of some real issues like Russiagate – even if with some winning of Trump administration, like the “Muslim ban” and the tax reform.

We can say that these anxieties and aversions are the “normal” effect (to be deal with) of the current world change and human transition passing through three main shifts in geography, gender and culture. The first is represented by the appearance on the world scene of most of human population coming from the Global South (as the Western world represent only 1/7th of world population) moving fast towards rich countries and asking to share the wealth with the inclusion of new “minorities” that step by step are becoming majorities; the change in the relationship between genders, with women trying to erode the still strong patriarchate first of all coming out against violence, and with different sexual orientations or gender constructions now freer to come out and live a happy life; and finally the growing of new ethical forces on the world scene respect to the traditional leadership of Western Christian ethic of individual liberty, coming from other traditional civilizations, first of all China, India and Islam, with their propositions towards new human relationships, without creating clashes, as Huntington suggested, but yes challenges to the old status quo based only on one small part of the world. Take Islam for example with its new proposition of human relationship based more on brotherhood and charity than individuality and a new women position based first of all on a different approach to her body (Nike for example just launched the first sports hijab).

These phobias can be clearly seen with the negative and often angry reactions to the current social change by the White Supremacists, with far right and misogynist revivals, with the attempts of historical revisionism – for example making the case for a good colonialism like a recent article on Third World Quarterly – the attempts of division of the already strained social fabric – for example with the highest institutional representative, the President, twitting insults, attacks and divisive visions – and the attempts of destroying the human dignity of people that differ from them – for example with the violence of speech and the internet of hate. Nevertheless, these hatreds are representing the “ontological insecurity” of the most isolated people, the ones that don’t live in multicultural urban spaces but in homogenous rural areas or suburbs, who don’t speak other languages and don’t even understand foreign accents of English, and who are not interested in travelling or learning deeply from different cultures, religions, political or economic systems. These phobias therefore are what they are: fears, worries, preoccupations of the unknown. Because the known is not scaring. But on the contrary, when the unknown become known it can become interesting. So, we need in the current world to study and know more, socialize and empathize more and in general be more exposed to diversity. As one recent conference organized by Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality & Equality (WISE) in DC titled: Knowledge ends Extremism.

The times they are a changing and this can be said because also this time, like in the 1960s, not the political leadership but “WE THE PEOPLE” are guiding the change, demonstrating that American democracy hast still strong backbones. The previous 8 years has been the intellectual leadership of an ex educator, citizen of the world, that guided the masses through the labyrinths of the current world complex transition, which will bring us towards a new planet, a new species and a new life. But now they are the people, the cosmopolitans, the progressive, the looking forward new generations, that want a world where all should have a better life thanks to inclusiveness, all should be freer thanks to technology, and all should have the possibility to pursuit their happiness, for having the chance to make the life they desire.

We don’t know how long will be this process of change in America, as cultures take time to change. The problem is that today the things happen fast but to change our habit, customs, ideas, and identities quickly is almost impossible. So how should the US do? Just live up to its values and extraordinary ability of adaptation, and work to reopen that public sphere, that moderate space, that market of ideas that made this democracy great, this country special and these people fascinating, as always ready to learn and improve. In particular my dear fellow white Christian American men: use your common sense, your intuition and your trust in the future. I know it is hard to stop being the chief, the padrino, to pass the baton or at least to share it and to accept that you are not the only one anymore to have power in the world and to have the right to say what is good and what is bad. If you do that I am positive that this unique country will keep being the “shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” Otherwise the decline is unavoidable.

[1] Hot Autumn (“Autunno caldo”) is an Italian term used for a series of large strikes and protests during 1969 in Italy

The catastrophic human suffering in Syria and Iraq, with more than six million refugees only from Syria, will be remembered as one of the biggest failure of the international community to defend civilians, since the Balkans and Rwanda more than twenty years ago. Even if territorial ISIS has just been defeated and the Iraqi Kurdistan is bidding on its independence we don’t know when the Syrian and Iraqi internal conflicts will finally end. But when they will that area will not be the same. And the entire region of Middle East (or more precisely South West Asia, as cardinal directions on a globe are relative) could not be the same if this time the regional powers, and not the world ones, will decide to build a new process for a regional integration.

Since 9/11, the US and his allies’ intervention in Iraq, that facilitated the birth of ISIS, and in Afghanistan, that didn’t stop the Salafi terrorism, and later the non-direct-proxy intervention of many world and regional powers in Syria, that created the humanitarian catastrophe, the Middle East and specifically the Arab world has been in disarray (adding also the failure of the Arab Spring). There is no comparison between the situation of today and the one of the second half of 20th century, when stable countries and strong leaders (like Nasser in Egypt) could give some form of stability to the region. The US President Donald Trump declared since the beginning of its mandate that he will “fix the mess he inherited” but even if some analysts at the beginning thought that he “will design a new Middle East” it is clear now that he has a flawed Middle East policy with no real plan for Syria or Iraq after Isis is defeated. Actually, he needs to concentrate on East Asia mostly, putting in practice the pivot that Obama already declared. But this is not a bad thing, at the end of the day, as there is no design or fixing of the Middle East with external interventions, we saw that repeatedly since at least one century, since the end of the Ottoman Empire, and probably even before since the Napoleon campaign in Ottoman Egypt and Syria: only regional empires really created stability in the past and only regional powers will create it in the future.

The leaders of Middle East are today facing a fundamental decision: to choose between the old-style balance of power, with the consequent instability when the balance becomes unbalanced, or a gradual future regional integration. The second choice is the only one that could guarantee some stability for the region, as Europe showed in the last 70 years after centuries of conflict because of balance of powers’ failures. Would this be possible also for the Middle East or is this just a utopian and naïf idea? Political will for transformational changes is never an easy thing, in particular in a region like this one, but also for Europe during WWII it seemed impossible to arrive to what we arrived today. After the destructions of the Syrian and Iraqi wars a long political vision has to come from the region, not from outside, and it is never too early to start to plan, at least if we have constantly in mind the civilian victims that suffer in the region every single day. But how to think about such a visionary plan?

To bet on a future economic and political integration in a region like Middle East the local powers will need not only to negotiate political settlements after stopping the fight but to reach a compromise on regional institutions to foster cooperation. This is the grand bargain that the regional powers need to achieve. To do this the regional countries with vocation of global actors, first of all Turkey and Iran, but also Egypt and Saudi Arabia, will have to understand that together they will be able to play a stronger role in the future complex and globalized world. As it has been for Europe last century, also the Middle East, if it wants to definitely abandon the past of violence and underdevelopment, will have to search for a gradual integration: an economic, political and also security integration, like it has been for the CEE and NATO, as development and security go hand in hand.

But the question that rise for Middle Eastern future in comparison to the European past is: could the regional powers of the area have the vision and determination of their European counterparts? And specifically could Iran learn to be what Germany (until 1990 only the West part) has been for Europe, the engine, Turkey what France has been, the torch, and Saudi Arabia what Italy has been, the bridge? Comparison are always a risk, as every region is by itself, and there are never models to apply, but lesson learned and best practices can be useful, if adapted to new times and different spaces. And we need to look at longer terms, all this century more than the next few years of decade (as China does at economic level with the new Silk Road initiative). Because longer time spans allow us to really see the long trends for the future, and try to impact them, more than to identify countries with their current leaders or administrations. So, let’s see one by one these regional leaders.

Iran is back in the international community since the nuclear deal was signed and it has all the potential to become the economic cornerstone of a future “Middle Eastern Economic Community”. It should nevertheless understand that its role is not the one of regional hegemony, either economically or ideologically, but the one of a shared leadership. Iran should work for Shia minorities in the future Middle East to be included in new democratic and inclusive governments, and not attempt to weaken the domestic politics of these governments to destabilize them and enter as a regional leader. This is something that the Ayatollah regime may not be ready to do it now, but regimes, as everything in human societies, are not eternals. So, let’s see what will be the future for Iranian democracy, as it is one of the countries that experienced the earlier democratic development in the Middle East, one century ago with the Persian Constitutional Revolution, unfortunately put down by the Russians.

Turkey today is not in a good situation, struggling between its internal democratic regression, the forgotten European membership and the external and internal threats of terrorism. But Turkey, besides being the connector between the EU and the Middle East, has the potential also to be the “light on the hill” for the Middle East, with its history of multiculturalism in the Ottoman times and democratic values in the Republican ones, and even earlier at the same time of the Iranian democratic development with the Young Turk revolution in 1908. Turkey represents one of the most trusted countries in all the Muslim world (that we don’t have to forget live mostly in Asia) and if it will rediscover the good elements of both the Ottoman times, with its history of cohabitation, and the Republican history, with roots in secular democracy, could become one of the political leaders of the future regional integration.

Finally Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries. The Arabic Peninsula represents the bridge between the Maghreb and the Southwest Asia: like Turkey also Saudi Arabia controls two seas that separate her from these areas, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The region to which the Arabic peninsula belong historically, geographically and ontologically is a bridging space between the Levant, the North Africa and the Indian Ocean. It is therefore with their Arab brothers that they must find a new Renaissance, starting with a more united and expanded GCC, after the conflict with Qatar will be solved, and following with a renovated Arab League. Will Al Saud family be able to do it when old king Salman will die, and the young Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman will become the new King? Will Al Saud family, with gradual reforms towards a more democratic monarchy, be able to represent a more enlightened Arab leadership that Gaddafi, Saddam, Hafez al-Assad and others could not do? Future will say but unfortunately it seems that Mohammed bin Salman wants to escalate the cold war with Iran and might risk a hot battle with unimaginable consequences. The problem is that Al Saud family, even if will be able to reinforce its power with the recent purges of bin Salman, will not be able to lead the country eternally as its own property. And mostly the Al Saud family needs a new approach to the relationship between religion and politics, as this will help to facilitate in the long future a Shia-Sunni rapprochement, instead of keep trying to fight an impossible battle with the millenary Shia communities in the region. Iran and Saudi Arabia sectarian division at the end of the day is not so different from the Catholic-Protestant division we had in Europe for centuries, before France and Germany finally agreed to integrate in an economic union, even if after two world wars. If Europe could do it Middle East can do it. Hopefully avoiding a similar bloodbath.

So, to avoid a major armed conflict, or keep going with proxy local wars, regional powers in Middle East will have to be enough visionary to understand that they can have more benefit if they collaborate than if they compete, especially in the future globalized times. If Iran, S. Arabia and Turkey will understand that supporting each other for economic development and security will be more beneficial than competing for sphere of influences, as Germany, Italy and France did after two world wars, this will create the leadership that the Middle East desperately need since at least one century. And most importantly, the Muslim world will have the leadership needed to live in peace with Jews and Christian, creating for the first time on that land a religious harmony of faiths that recognize Abraham as their common prophet. Actually, the integration of the Middle East cannot happen without also the participation of Israel. Israel could represents the compass of the region, as it is the state that can share a history of stable democracy in the Middle East and is the country that can bring the concept of inclusion of diversity in the new regional order. There will not be integration of the Middle East without the inclusion of Israel, and this means also a stable peace process between Israel and Palestine, and with that process Israel will finally get the legitimacy to be recognized and respected as a partner by the leaders of the Middle Eastern Muslim world.

But what are the concrete steps with short-term goals that the regional powers should take to start a similar integration? First of all, like the Treaty of Rome followed the Ventotene Manifesto on Europe, also the Middle East will need some type of “Manifesto” to mark the road and explain the necessity of such future. The intellectual and political figures of the Middle East need to come out and take the lead to trace the road. The Islamic intelligentsia for example should start to debate about the future regional order, and international organizations like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation could play a role in this. Concepts like the Islamic banking and finance, based on specific political or economic values, could be an important starting point to make the regional powers see that they share more than what they differ. Secondly, conferences on economic and security cooperation should be held. These conferences could address the preliminary steps for a common market and common resources (first oil and gas) as it is through economy that the interest of cooperation comes out first. Then security conferences could be done, on the example of the Helsinki Conference in the 1970s, that created the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in order to accompany the birth of an “Organization for security and cooperation in Middle East”. International preparatory conferences will not be easy as these countries meet among many others at the UN or G20 but never met for such process of integration, so they will need a political leadership with enough vision and boldness to propose these actions. But the task will not be possible without some external supporters, to facilitate the diplomatic efforts for an economic and political integration (like the US has been for Europe). So the third element could be the support of external powers as mediators and guarantors and the first of these powers could be the European Union (EU). As the EU helped the US and Russia to come to an agreement with Iran, it could also help in future the Middle Eastern regional powers to take the lead for a regional integration. The EU could give to a Middle Eastern integration process what the US gave for the birth of the EU, which is economic and political support. This would represent an occasion also for the EU in the next decades to recover from its economic, political and cultural crisis that is living now. The EU seems the most legitimate and balanced international actor to take such role, as the US and Russia would keep fighting for sphere of influences and this would not help the future integration. For the same reason security should be kept in the hands of regional powers, as if external actors like NATO for example would enter in the protection of local partners this could create frictions between again the two world superpowers. This doesn’t meant that partnerships and dialogues like the NATO Mediterranean dialogue with Maghreb and NATO Istanbul Cooperation Initiative with Gulf countries should not continue though.

Diplomacy requires time and patience, and ability to find a balance among the parts. It is not an easy game and as the recent US rapprochement with Cuba and Iran demonstrates, and it has to be constantly nurtured, as the more recent Trump hostile actions show. So the international community and the regional powers need to extend the “shadow of the future”, think about longer terms in order to open prospective for convergence of interests and cooperation. It seems a far stretch right now to think about a Middle Eastern integration but the European Economic Community also seemed impossible in the past but it born with the Treaty of Rome 60 years ago, in order, as Schuman had said, “to make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible” in the future in Europe. The same could happen in the ME in the long run and the regional powers, supported by the EU, will have to take the lead during this century if they want an enduring stability with a regional order.

It is in time of chaos that we need clear ideas and long visions, it is in time of war that we need strong political will, and it is in time of major human sufferings that we need to search for long term solutions. We owe it first to the people of Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and all the other areas of Middle East in constant suffering.

The referendums of Lombardia-Veneto in Italy and moreover Catalonia in Spain (with voices of new referendums in the UK), on the wave of the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, show that nation states are in a transition phase in Europe. The nation state, born four hundreds years ago and reinforced through the centuries, traditionally based on a very centralized state and an homogeneous nation, is changing skin, being eroded from above and from below. And the citizens of these nation states, at least in the so called “West” part of the world, seems to want to change their national identity skin, and in the process trying to rewrite the social contract with a new self-determination wave.

The European cases are different obviously from Kurdish one, as in Europe there are democracies, there has been no decolonization or genocide attempt against these minorities and autonomies are already strong, both in federated states like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or Belgium, but even in non-federations such as Spain, United Kingdom, or Italy (with regional assemblies for special regions) that can be defined as “asymmetric federalism.” But new nationalism, based on ethnicity as in the Catalan case, are on the rise as reaction to globalization, migrations and new identities, and politicians are using that narrative together with populist attitudes to capitalize political power.

But changing borders is not a game and can end up with fatal consequences. The are several separatist movements in Europe and beyond. If all of them seek independence that would create a big mess in world politics in terms of humanitarian consequences and economic costs. An independent Catalonia for example could shake the foundations of the European Union. Should Sicily and Lombardia seek independence after that? If we witness an increasing of ethno-nationalist wave, we will have serious problems in the European integration, even if we will not go back to the Europe of fifteenth century.

The self-determination is the right of the people to determine their own political status without external interference but is becoming more and more a complex and delicate issue. Self-determination is mentioned only two times in the United Nations charter, in the context of developing “friendly relations among states” and “equal rights.” Even if during the 1960s it was interpreted as the right of colonies to become independent, distinct ethnic groups within colonies did not have a right to separate. Since the 1990s—under international law—this right is tangled with human rights and democratic norms. And today it is not free from political manipulation, with interests that go beyond the “autonomization” of nations, ethnic groups or cultures, as we saw with recent referenda.

Many compare the case of Kosovo with Catalonia. Kosovo is the newest European state to have gained independence, but the country did not just decide to secede for no reason. Independence was essential for the survival of its people who were being ethnically cleansed, persecuted, and tortured for decades. Kosovo and Kurdistan are much more comparable cases, even if Kosovo is a sui generis case: the only time when the West initiated a military humanitarian intervention to prevent another Srebrenica. This is not to say that Catalans or Venetians do not deserve more autonomy or even independence in the future. The argument though is that the world is evolving and so is the understanding of self-determination.

Nation states are not eternal. But monoethnic nation states are not the solution. Few countries in the world are ethnically homogenous and will be less and less in the future. Pluralistic nation states, with federations, autonomies, decentralization, and even cities included in the participation to the national “public affairs”, the Res-publica, are more successful, democratic, and stable. Independence and secession should be the extrema ratio for self-determination of the people. The normal process should be the negotiations, the eternal “market of points of view” that would allow to respond to the needs of all parts in a consensual decision making.

Real democracy, substantive, meaningful and liberal democracy means power “from by and to” the people, and so inclusiveness of all parts of society. Level of inclusion, through “autonomization” of regions that feel repressed and people that feel not recognized should be the criteria to measure democracies. This for both authoctonous and new minorities. Immigrants arriving to a new country should be granted if not citizenship at least the status of refugee, and their children given the jus solis principle of citizenship based on birth.

But we need to take care of political strumentalization in the process. Referendum can be a great instrument of democracy (like the ones asking on civil rights) but also a great instrument of manipulation. We have seen them used as power tool in many countries, from Venezuela to Ukraine, from Turkey to Europe today. Constitutions are still the main social contract that state must abide to. If new sensibilities and social change require to change Constitutions that must be done with negotiations.

The world, and states in particular that don’t represent their diversity, because of their history of conquer, nationalist institutions and politics of repression, from Middle East to Africa to Europe, are in great distress. But we need to take care that this process doesn’t become a tragedy for the people, manipulated by political forces. The real solution is dialogue. Spanish and Catalan representatives, as well as Italians and Venetians or British and Scottish, should negotiate and reach a compromise, probably a federalized state structure, for the satisfactions of all the parts and the continuation of the important European integration that is under stress from above and from below.

“It took us seven generations to create this mess” said Manitoba Senator Murray Sinclair, one of the three Commissioner of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to explain the 150 years of Canadian history. “Probably it will take seven more generations to fix it”, said Kimberly Murray, the Executive Director of that same Commission, referring to the next 150 years of Canada.

Canada is known in the world for being one of the most diverse and pluralistic society, with one-fifth of Canadians born elsewhere, being also a gigantic country with a small population of 35 million people, always in search of immigrants. In 1971, Canada was the first country in the world to adopt “multiculturalism” as an official policy, considered every Canadian citizen equal regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation. But one thing are the laws and structures and one thing the application of those policies on the ground. Actually, the recent celebrations for the 150 years since Kanata-Canada foundation have sparked a lot of criticism from civil society organizations, especially the ones representing the First Nations, saying that in reality this country history is based on colonization, segregation and even genocide, not only “cultural genocide” as the Truth and Reconciliation commission defined it[1].

I had the possibility to participate in June to an international congress on humanities and social sciences, organized by Ryerson University in Toronto, a very intercultural city (where also half million Italians reside, the biggest Italian community outside Italy). At the conference, several panels were organized to talk about the past and the future of Canada, with important names like John Ralston Saul or Mohamed Fahmy. One of the persons that spoke in one of the panels was Kimberly Murray, who I had the possibility to interview after the conference, and who told me a little about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Commission, that worked between 2008 and 2015 was part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, an agreement between the government of Canada and almost 90 thousand Native Canadians recognized as victims, the largest class-action lawsuit in Canadian history. The Commission showed how for many decades indigenous children belonging to First Nations or Inuit or Métis (Mixed) were removed from their families and placed in the Canadian Indian residential school system, in schools operated often by the Christian churches, mostly Roman Catholic, where they were abused physically, emotionally and sexually. Over 7 thousand kids died. Recently the Canadian prime minister Trudeau even asked Pope Francis to apologize for the history of the schools and “move forward on a real reconciliation.”[2]

But the story is not finishing with the schools. Special hospitals were also created for indigenous people, with a racial segregation organized to isolate indigenous people from the settlers. Like in the residential schools these hospitals were places of abuses until the end of the 20TH century. Actually, there are complains that the current health system continues to treat indigenous people differently from the others, with a discrimination that substituted the segregation. Also, through the foster care and adoption system, thousands of indigenous children were taken from their homes and then adopted by non-Indigenous families both in Canada and abroad, during the 1960s, the infamous “60s scoops” as it has been defined, an attempt of “cultural genocide” as the Commission defined it.

The agreement reached with the tens of thousands of indigenous people, costed to the Canadian government $2 billion compensation package for the victims. But it is not only money that can repay the suffering and the story of colonization and segregation. Unfortunately, only few people have been convicted for the deaths in the schools but the attempted genocide, cultural or physical, that British and French colonies before, and Canada and the US after, did to the indigenous people of North America is something that cannot be erased from history. That is why the 94 Calls to action of the Commission ask for changes in educational programs, increase funding for Aboriginal languages, address the lack of health services available to indigenous communities etc. Murray said that these recommendations have started to be implemented at community and local level but not at national one, and some of the recommendations will have hard time to be implemented. This is the case for example of the application of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people, that require prior consent by the indigenous people before the construction of infrastructures on the indigenous land, as Canada’s Supreme Court has not recognized this consent standard yet (very important with the recent protest for the constructions of pipelines in North America[3]).

Many other countries have stories of genocide and not all of them has recognized that. But the recognition of a genocide at the foundation of a nation is the only way to come to terms with our history and get the legitimacy in front of the international community. It is a showing of strength not of weakness.[4] And actually, the US should follow the example of Canada, as it never had any process of healing and reparation, either economic or spiritual, and less a Truth and Reconciliation Commission neither for the Indian American genocide or for the African American slavery and segregation. And today we can see the consequences with the still discrimination and racism towards Indian Americans and African Americans.

Awareness of the past, and acknowledge of the suffering, is the first step for a real “truth and reconciliation” with our own past and this is the path that Canada should take to build a better future. It will be good for Canada and it will be good for many other countries, that will look up at Canada as an example.